Page 107 of Just Like Home

Maybe God had taken the wrong sibling.

At his side, he felt Charlotte’s eyes on him. “What are you thinking about?”

Normally, a question like that would’ve sent him running for the door, but he had a feeling Charlotte would understand.

“I was thinking about Jules,” he said.

She shifted. “I think about her a lot.”

Cole’s mind wandered back to the day Julianna found out the truth about Gemma’s affair. She showed up at the door, forced him to shower, and then dragged him to her house for dinner.

She fed him pot roast and made him help with the kids’ bedtime duties while Connor cleaned up the kitchen.

She didn’t treat him differently, didn’t look at him like he was a failure. In fact, she made him feel normal. And for a minute, he almost believed there was joy to be had again, that just because he’d been unlucky in love, that didn’t mean it didn’t exist.

Of course, that feeling hadn’t lasted long, but it had been there for a moment, because of her.

At his side, Charlotte touched the photo.

“You miss her,” he said, aware that their collective grief could bond them together.

She nodded.

“I miss her too.”

“You two were close,” she said—a statement, not a question.

“We were,” he said. “After our mom left, we kind of had to fend for ourselves. I told myself I needed to take care of Jules, but the truth is, we took care of each other.”

“She had a way of doing that.” Charlotte smiled. “Of taking care of people. It was kind of her thing.”

He nodded. “She was special. Always put everyone else first. Sometimes I wonder if that’s why she quit performing. That was the one thing she did for herself.”

Charlotte looked away.

“But, in typical Julianna fashion, she turned it into something she could give back to other people. Nothing made her happier than teaching.”

“You really think so?” Charlotte started toward the door. “I mean, you really think she was happy here?”

He followed her outside, and they stopped on the sidewalk in front of the studio.

“I do,” he said. “I mean, not at first. She never told me what happened with dance or why she decided to quit, but I know it wasn’t an easy decision.”

“How do you know?”

He shrugged. “She was devastated. There was a program she’d been working really hard to get into, and when they didn’t take her, she took it as a sign. She came back here, broken heart and everything, and for a long time, I worried about her. She was so not herself. Sad. Mopey. Depressed.”

Charlotte watched him intently.

“You probably already know this,” he said.

“No,” she said. “Not all of it. I mean, I remember when she told me she was quitting. I tried to talk her out of it.”

His mind wandered back to the letter he’d read. Charlotte pleaded with his sister. It was clear Charlotte needed Julianna as much as the rest of them. Her death had to be weighing heavily on her. They had that in common.

Was that why she’d been crying earlier?

“I guess I wondered how she got from there to here,” Charlotte said. “And I always wondered if she made the right decision.”

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